FORMER WIFE OF SUSPECT GIVES EVIDENCE IN OMAGH BOMB HEARING
Former wife of suspect gives evidence in Omagh bomb hearing
THE multi-million-pound Omagh civil trial continued at the High Court in Belfast this week where, on Tuesday, the former wife of one of the men being sued over the bombing claimed she was 'tortured' for four days by detectives hunting the gang responsible.
Catherine McKenna also told the High Court her ex-husband, Seamus, had no paramilitary involvement that she knew of.
Giving evidence after being summonsed to the civil action against five men blamed for the August 1998 attack, she described him instead as a man who usually only made contact from a pub when he was drunk.
The South Armagh woman, who separated from McKenna five years before the atrocity which killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, was held by police the following March.
Detectives brought her in for questioning about a phone call to her home, which they suspected was made by her ex-husband less than an hour after the explosion.
Cross-examined by Brian Fee QC for McKenna, she said: "They dragged me out of the house and took me in a helicopter to Bessbrook and then to Derry.
"I was tortured for four days. I was told my children were going to be arrested... our son was going to be lifted."
She recalled how her two daughters were due to give birth at the time and said her children were screaming as she was taken away.
"I was told I wasn't going to see my grandchildren," she said. The witness went into the witness box at the civil trial of McKenna, Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly - who are being sued by victims' famines - despite a doctor's certificate stating it may be inadvisable due to a medical condition.
Meanwhile, in an earlier hearing on Friday, a top psychiatrist claimed the counselling offered to those suffering post-traumatic stress after the Omagh atrocity was a 'complete waste of time'.
Dr Nicholas Cooling dismissed its value to victims' relatives plunged into major depression, as he gave evidence at the High Court.
During cross-examination by Dermot Fee QC, appearing for defendants Seamus Daly and Colm Murphy, the consultant psychiatrist said those he saw following the terrorist strike underwent something more serious than bereavement and adjustment disorder.
He contested Mr Fee's assertion that relatives who did not take counselling would have benefited from it, pointing instead to psychotherapy intervention and anti-depressants as more effective treatments.
Dr Cooling told the hearing in Belfast: "Counselling would make absolutely no difference to someone who has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD) or clinical depression.
"Counselling is a complete waste of time. Unfortunately in this case a lot of people had counselling with the expectation it might do something and it didn't."
THE multi-million-pound Omagh civil trial continued at the High Court in Belfast this week where, on Tuesday, the former wife of one of the men being sued over the bombing claimed she was 'tortured' for four days by detectives hunting the gang responsible.
Catherine McKenna also told the High Court her ex-husband, Seamus, had no paramilitary involvement that she knew of.
Giving evidence after being summonsed to the civil action against five men blamed for the August 1998 attack, she described him instead as a man who usually only made contact from a pub when he was drunk.
The South Armagh woman, who separated from McKenna five years before the atrocity which killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, was held by police the following March.
Detectives brought her in for questioning about a phone call to her home, which they suspected was made by her ex-husband less than an hour after the explosion.
Cross-examined by Brian Fee QC for McKenna, she said: "They dragged me out of the house and took me in a helicopter to Bessbrook and then to Derry.
"I was tortured for four days. I was told my children were going to be arrested... our son was going to be lifted."
She recalled how her two daughters were due to give birth at the time and said her children were screaming as she was taken away.
"I was told I wasn't going to see my grandchildren," she said. The witness went into the witness box at the civil trial of McKenna, Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly - who are being sued by victims' famines - despite a doctor's certificate stating it may be inadvisable due to a medical condition.
Meanwhile, in an earlier hearing on Friday, a top psychiatrist claimed the counselling offered to those suffering post-traumatic stress after the Omagh atrocity was a 'complete waste of time'.
Dr Nicholas Cooling dismissed its value to victims' relatives plunged into major depression, as he gave evidence at the High Court.
During cross-examination by Dermot Fee QC, appearing for defendants Seamus Daly and Colm Murphy, the consultant psychiatrist said those he saw following the terrorist strike underwent something more serious than bereavement and adjustment disorder.
He contested Mr Fee's assertion that relatives who did not take counselling would have benefited from it, pointing instead to psychotherapy intervention and anti-depressants as more effective treatments.
Dr Cooling told the hearing in Belfast: "Counselling would make absolutely no difference to someone who has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD) or clinical depression.
"Counselling is a complete waste of time. Unfortunately in this case a lot of people had counselling with the expectation it might do something and it didn't."
Further Information
Publisher: TYRONE CONSTITUTION
Ref: TC/1971
Published Date: 23-Oct-08
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